What should my maximum calorie intake be?

Use an online TDEE calculator to work out your maintenance calories. If you eat less than your TDEE (maintenance) then you will lose weight. Eat more and you will gain weight.

It is calories that count, a calorie is a unit of energy, your body cannot differentiate what source that energy came from.

Here is a good calculator to help you determine your goals!

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Quit randomly picking a number and do some math. Figure out your BMR, you should probably be eating above it although you have a lot to lose so your number may be a bit inflated. You can let MFP pick your calorie goal if you're unsure. Enter all your information and it will give you the number to eat.

Just eating "healthy" won't take weight off unless you're in a calorie deficit. I can totally over eat on healthy foods.

^this. its worth it for your health and weightloss goals to do a little reasearch on what calorie goal you need. People, like me, can gain weight eating healthy/low salt. Find out your bmr and your tdee and then do some research on what you need to eat. There are LOTS of posts here if you use the search function on how to figure it out for newbies.

Hello,

I've set myself at 1250 calories, then I've set myself at 1400 calories.

I'm confused because my physician assistant at my job keeps telling me "calories are bs" and as long as I eat healthy, cut my salt intake out and eat only one carbohydrate a day, I will lose weight.

I'm all confused now. I seem to go over my calories by 250 here and there.

I'm 30 years old, 4'11'' currently at 177 lbs, (gained 7 lbs back, so mad!). What should my high calorie end be? Would 1600 calories be pushing it?

I try to excercise and go to the gym 3-4 times a week, but lately with time conflicts, it's been tougher to get there as much as I'd like.

Suggestions?

Your physician assistant is WRONG. Losing weight means you need to burn more calories than you take in. This often done via exercise, but you can eat at a calorie deficit and still lose weight.

Have you set your profile up in MFP yet? If you work in a medical facility, my guess is you are active (I used to work in medical facilities and moved around a lot no matter what my job was). Depending on how much weight you want to lose, you would set a goal of anywhere from .5 to 2 pounds a week. That amount MFP comes up with will give you your calories for the day with a built in deficit, which is calories consumed BEFORE exercise. If you exercise, you would eat as much of those calories back as you can (I can never eat all mine back because I'm not that hungry and I want to account for calorie estimation errors, but I do eat a portion back).

Be careful to MFP calcs of both food and exercise because they are not entirely accurate. Read packages and online nutrition information.